Cover image courtesy of Goulburn Race Club
I'm sure I'm not the only person who would have noticed the irony of Peter V'landys justifying Racing NSW taking ownership of the Goulburn racetrack, in return for development funding, on the basis that this would ensure the use of the land in perpetuity for racing.
This is the very same Racing NSW which is pushing hard for Rosehill racetrack to be sold off and lost to racing forever.
This latest move to bring another racetrack under the ownership of Racing NSW is just part of a long sequence of similar deals that seem to have the end goal of bringing virtually all racetracks, of high value, under the ownership of Racing NSW.
If the sale of Rosehill goes through I'm sure Racing NSW will try and control the use of the proceeds from the sale even though, the asset being sold, does not belong to Racing NSW. Racing NSW has used its control of the income generated by betting from these very tracks to then control these clubs by doling the money back to them as it sees fit, with plenty of conditions attached.
When the TAB dominated the racing landscape there was a much fairer process for funding racecourse improvements. This was the racecourse development fund that basically gave grants to clubs with the condition that if the race club sold the track within 25 years of the grant some of this money had to be repaid to it.
Matthew Sandblom | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
This is exactly what happened to Harold Park when Peter V'landys, who was then heading harness racing in NSW, sold for $180 million. The race club had to pay back a large amount of funding to the development fund for significant grandstand and track development that was only about 10 years old.
The other key aspect that most people seem to overlook, and why I gave this article the dramatic heading, is that Racing NSW is a government created and controlled body.
This is not a body controlled by the racing industry; as many in the racing industry have come to learn the hard way. While the impression is that, in most cases, Peter V'landys is calling the shots, ultimate power rests with the government of the day. They can appoint the board they want and the CEO they want.
So all of these race clubs are transferring their most significant assets over to full government control, and a similar thing will happen if Rosehill is sold. And, by the way, the argument that the Australian Turf Club (ATC) has to look at selling Rosehill because of its poor financial situation is a total red herring.
The ATC has billions of dollars in assets and only tens of millions of dollars of debt. And Racing NSW has been stashing money into property rather than giving the ATC anything but the bare minimum in funding.
Aerial view of Rosehill racecourse
So, what happens in the future when a different government is in power and they have to rely on doing a deal with the anti-racing Greens to form a government?
This is quite a likely scenario, even at the next state election. Perhaps as part of such a deal the Greens insist to changes as how racing is run and to converting some racetracks to public spaces.
The Greens have already put forward a proposal to turn Rosehill into community spaces. This would be all too easy to do, as all of these key assets would already be owned by Racing NSW, which the government totally controls. You could argue that the current Racing Act prevents this, but this Act can be changed easily enough by a new government.
Racing is a big industry, with lots of competing interests, but also a deep commitment by everybody involved to see the industry thrive and prosper. Racing NSW, perhaps embolden by previous successes in growing the revenue base, seems determined to taking full control of all parts of the industry and extinguishing any significant power bases that could oppose it.
Realistically the ATC should be at least as powerful as Racing NSW, but Racing NSW has worked out ways to keep them on a very short leash.
I don't believe this is good for the long term health of an industry that we all care so much about.
